


Never Love an Anchor

by ghostinthelibrary



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Discussions of Motherhood, Established Relationship, Found Family, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Multi, Parent Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Past Child Abandonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29434131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostinthelibrary/pseuds/ghostinthelibrary
Summary: Yennefer doesn’t recognize the noise that emits from her throat as indescribable anguish floods her. Geralt is so still, his head lolling and his face slackened. There are four arrows protruding from his chest and stomach, each sunk in deep. One would be enough to kill a normal man. But four arrows will fell anyone, even a witcher.Jaskier looks up, his face streaked with blood and tears. “Help him.”After Geralt is badly injured fending off a group of Nilfgaardian soldiers, Yennefer, Jaskier, and Ciri are certain they’re going to lose him. But an unexpected savior arrives— Geralt’s mother, Visenna.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg & Visenna (The Witcher)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 160
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #06





	Never Love an Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for this week's Witcher Quick Fic challenge.
> 
> Title is from the song of the same name by The Crane Wives, which heavily influenced this fic.
> 
> Thank you to teamfreehoodies for betaing and to brothebro for the beautiful cover art!

They don’t see the soldiers coming.

One moment, the woods are dark and silent, save for Jaskier’s snoring, the crackle of the campfire, and Roach munching on some grass. Yennefer never truly sleeps deeply when they’re camping in the woods. It was better when she had her magical tent, but she didn’t think to bring it with her to Sodden Hill. She never expected to be on the run in the weeks since the battle, her chaos drained and a price on her head because of her association with a certain witcher and his child surprise.

She’s only dozing when she hears Geralt’s shout and the whistle of an arrow through the air. Yennefer is on her feet in an instant, scrambling towards Ciri. The girl is still blinking awake when Yennefer drags her to her feet and towards the woods. Behind them, she can hear Jaskier swearing but she doesn’t stop to make sure if he’s okay, because they have a plan. They all know exactly what to do if they’re attacked and Yennefer’s job is to get Ciri to safety.

It rankles her that she can’t stand beside Geralt and fight to keep them all safe. It’s been a month since Sodden Hill and her powers are still too erratic; she would be as much of a danger to her allies as their enemies if she attempted to fight the soldiers. Physically, she’s weakened too; there will be no quick swordwork to fight their attackers back. She would be a liability and she refuses to get Geralt killed because he needs to protect her. 

But the fact that Jaskier, who is handy enough with a blade in a pinch but is no trained soldier, is the only one who has Geralt’s back leaves a hollow pit in Yennefer’s stomach.

She stumbles over a fallen branch, leaning heavily on Ciri’s slight frame. They’re far enough away from camp that the sounds of shouting and swords clanging has faded behind him, so Yennefer tugs Ciri behind an evergreen tree. They crouch beside it, the needles prickling at the backs of their necks. Ciri is breathing hard, her hands curled into fists against her knees.

“We should go help,” she says.

Yennefer shakes her head. “We hide until we hear the signal. That’s the plan.”

“But how can we just sit there while—”

“Enough.” Yennefer’s voice comes out harsher than she intends.

The princess scowls at her furiously, but falls silent.

Yennefer clenches her jaw. She didn’t know what she was expecting when she met Geralt’s child surprise. An instant daughter, perhaps, one bound to Geralt by destiny as much as Yennefer and Jaskier are by the djinn wish. Instead, they’ve butted heads frequently over the last month. Ciri shares her grandmother’s distrust of mages and doesn’t seem to understand the relationship between Yennefer, Jaskier, and Geralt, viewing Yennefer as some kind of usurper.

“She’ll warm up to you eventually, love,” Jaskier murmured to Yennefer one night, not long after they reunited after Sodden Hill. “After all, you won me over.”

Yennefer snorted. “You were pathetically easy to win over, bardling.”

Jaskier grinned and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “You underestimate how loveable you are.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Crouched in the woods, Yennefer thinks of Jaskier and Geralt back at their campsite, fighting untold numbers of Nilfgaardian soldiers. She tries not to picture all the horrors she saw at Sodden Hill inflicted on the men she loves.

“Yennefer?” Ciri hisses and Yennefer realizes that the princess has been trying to get her attention.

Yennefer turns to the princess, smoothing her face into one of composure. “Yes?”

“Will they be alright?” Ciri’s voice trembles, reminding Yennefer of how young she is, younger even than Yennefer was when she came to Aretuza.

“Of course,” Yennefer says. “They’ve both survived worse things than a group of Nilfgaardians.”

Ciri nods, looking almost reassured, before there’s a shout in the distance. “Yennefer!”

It’s Jaskier’s voice, filled with raw anguish. Coldness that has nothing to do with the frigid night air washes over Yennefer. That’s not the signal they were supposed to get from Geralt when things were all clear. And there’s only one thing that would ever make Jaskier sound like that.

Legs suddenly numb, she stumbles to her feet and runs, Ciri right behind her. It’s a good thing that there are no Nilfgaardian scouts lying in wait, because she most likely wouldn’t see them in her frantic dash back to the campsite. She slows her steps as they approach, wondering if she should tell Ciri to stay back, spare her from whatever horrors are waiting for them. But the princess has already seen so much death; it’s far too late to protect her from the devastation of war.

They find the campsite scattered with bodies. Nilfgaardian soldiers lie sprawled across the ground in various states of dismemberment. Geralt doesn’t hesitate to kill when it’s Jaskier, Yennefer, and Ciri at stake. And kneeling in the middle of it all is Jaskier, cradling Geralt in his arms.

Yennefer doesn’t recognize the noise that emits from her throat as indescribable anguish floods her. Geralt is so still, his head lolling and his face slackened. There are four arrows protruding from his chest and stomach, each sunk in deep. One would be enough to kill a normal man. But four arrows will fell anyone, even a witcher.

Jaskier looks up, his face streaked with blood and tears. “Help him.”

Yennefer shakes her head. Even when she had her chaos under control, there would be nothing she could do for four arrows in someone’s abdomen. She’s not a trained healer. This isn’t a magically inflicted wound, like when the djinn attacked Jaskier’s throat; this is pure human brutality.

“He’s still alive.” Jaskier chokes on the words. “He’s still breathing. Yenn, it’s not too late. We can save him. We just need to get him to a village or…”

There are no villages nearby, but Yennefer doesn’t need to tell him that. They’re only a day’s walk from the Blue Mountains. Hardly anyone lives up here; the weather is cold and the land is hostile.

“No.” Ciri drops down to her knees on Geralt’s other side. She looks back at Yennefer with none of her usual guarded distrust. Instead, she looks terrified. “Please, you have to do something!”

“I would if I could.” Yennefer’s voice comes out cold and remote, at odds with the maelstrom of rage and grief and hopelessness inside her. “We can make him comfortable.”

“Comfortable?” Yennefer feels Ciri’s cry in her bones. “What does comfortable do for him?”

Yennefer doesn’t answer. Slowly, she goes to kneel next to Geralt, smoothing his bloodied white hair out of his face. His eyes flutter at the contact, but he doesn’t wake. That’s probably a kindness, Yennefer thinks, even as she wants to scream at him to wake up, to look at her, to smile one last time. He’ll slip away painlessly. She hopes he lost consciousness before he realized he was dying.

“It was my fault.” Jaskier’s voice cracks. “The archer was aiming for me. Geralt jumped in front of me. He _saved_ me.”

Yennefer makes that noise again, that ugly, raw choking noise. Jaskier reaches out a red-smeared hand and grabs her fingers. They exchange looks, neither of them speaking. Neither of them have to. They’ve always known that it would end like this someday. Geralt warned both of them. It’s why he spent over a decade trying to push Jaskier away and didn’t admit his feelings for the bard until the djinn wish bound the three of them together. It’s why it took him twelve years to claim Ciri.

Witchers never die in their beds, Geralt would say. Best to leave as few mourners behind as possible.

“We’re so close,” Jaskier whispers as Yennefer presses a kiss to Geralt’s forehead. “Three days to Kaer Morhen, he said earlier. We’re so fucking close, Yenn.”

“We’ll keep going.” Yennefer doesn’t know who the person talking in the infuriatingly calm voice coming out of her mouth is, but it can’t be her. Not when she feels ready to tear her own hair out. “We have no other choice. We have to keep going.”

Kaer Morhen is the only place the three of them will be safe, especially with Geralt… 

Footsteps crunch on the frozen ground and all three of them look around. Everything outside of the circle cast by their dim, flickering campfire is pitch black. Jaskier lets go of Yennefer’s hand and reaches for his dagger.

“Who’s there?” he calls into the darkness in an authoritative voice that doesn't match his tearstained face and shaking hands. Always a performer, their bardling. The thought of something happening to him too sends a surge of terror through her and she leaps to her feet, planting herself between Jaskier and the sounds of footsteps approaching.

“Yenn,” Jaskier whispers.

“Ciri, get behind us.” Without her chaos, Yennefer is about as useful in a fight as Roach— even less so, since the horse has been known to kick the occasional bandit— but that won’t stop her from doing whatever it takes to keep her family safe, even if that means just giving Jaskier and Ciri enough time to run.

“I mean no harm.” The woman’s voice is low and calm. “I’m here to offer assistance.”

She comes into view, a tall woman wearing a simple dress and cloak and carrying a satchel over her shoulder. She’s the last person Yennefer would expect to find in the middle of the Kaedweni woods, miles from any civilization. As she draws closer, stepping into the glow of the firelight, Yennefer makes out long red hair and strong hands that are spread out in front of her, demonstrating her lack of weapon.

“I’m a healer,” the woman says. “I can save your travel companion.”

“He’s been shot with four arrows,” Yennefer snarls. “I don’t know what you have in that satchel, but I doubt it can work miracles.”

Ciri steps around Jaskier. “You’re a druid.”

The woman nods. “Yes.”

Yennefer scoffs.

“I know what mages think of druids.” The woman’s voice gives away no outrage or offense. “I promise, we think just as highly of mages. But we can stand here and have a discussion over which one of us practices magic the right way, or I can save your lover’s life.”

Yennefer’s hands curl into fists at her side.

“Yenn.” Jaskier’s voice cracks.

Yennefer steps to the side so the woman has a clear view of Geralt. “If you harm him—”

“I would never.” The woman draws her hood back so they can see her face. Yennefer has never seen her before, but something about her is oddly familiar.

“Who are you?” she asks.

The woman’s lips curl into a small smile. “My name is Visenna.”

And then Yennefer sees it: the familiar line of her jaw, the shape of her hazel eyes, the curve of her nose. “You’re Geralt’s mother.”

Behind her, Jaskier makes a soft, shocked noise.

To her credit, Visenna doesn’t protest. “That’s me.”

Yennefer fights down her fury, remembering the look on Geralt’s face the only time he spoke to her of his mother’s abandonment. He didn’t look hurt or enraged or betrayed, just resigned. Like a six year old boy should have expected nothing better than being abandoned in the woods.

“Save him,” she growls. “Because if you don’t, you’ll pay for what you did to him all those years ago.”

The look Visenna gives her is perfectly neutral. It appears Geralt learned his infuriatingly blank expressions even before he got to Kaer Morhen. “What makes you think I already haven’t?”

***

Yennefer, Jaskier, and Ciri stay out of the way while Visenna works. She walks around Geralt clockwise, carrying an armful of lit candles and chanting quietly. Geralt lies perfectly still, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. Jaskier helped Visenna get the arrows out of him; they lie in a bloodied heap on the ground. Geralt’s wounds are smeared with a thick, foul-smelling paste and bandaged tightly.

“What is she doing?” Jaskier sounds bewildered.

Yennefer shakes her head. “I don’t know. Druid magic is nature magic. It’s as different from sorcery as banging on pots and pans is from you playing your lute.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about my lute playing.” Jaskier’s smile is only a shadow of his usual beaming grin. He still has Geralt’s blood smeared on his face. “How did you know she was Geralt’s mother? Besides the infuriating tactiturness.”

“I recognized the name,” Yennefer says, watching as Visenna plants the candles in the earth around Geralt.

“Geralt told you about her?”

Yennefer nods. “He never told you?”

“He’s never liked talking about his past.” Jaskier frowns.

Yennefer makes a noncommittal noise. Jaskier is always happy to lend a sympathetic ear— particularly when he thinks he’ll get a ballad out of it— but he had a happy childhood. He can never truly understand what she and Geralt went through. He complains about his parents frequently, about their expectations and their matchmaking attempts and their idolization of his cousin, Ferrant, but at the end of the day, Jaskier’s parents love him. They kept him safe, made sure he was provided for, and want to be a part of his life. Geralt and Yennefer can’t say the same about their families.

“I always assumed that he didn’t have a family, if he ended up at Kaer Morhen,” Jaskier says softly. “What kind of parent would send their child to become a witcher?”

Yennefer’s lip curls. “One who doesn’t give a damn if they live or die.”

If Visenna hears them, she gives no indication.

“But why is she here?” Jaskier asks. “How did she find us?”

“I’ve been following the four of you since Sodden,” Visenna says. “I needed to ensure that you made it to Kaer Morhen in one piece.”

Jaskier’s jaw drops. “We left Sodden a month ago.”

Visenna hums in a way that’s disturbingly reminiscent of her son. “And you’ve had an uneventful journey, have you not? Up until today, at least.”

“Who the fuck are you?” At the druid’s sharp look, Jaskier blanches. “I mean that respectfully, of course.”

“I don’t.” Yennefer crosses her arm over her chest. “You’re around a century too late to be concerned about Geralt’s safety. So why would you follow us all the way to Kaer Morhen?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t trespass on Kaer Morhen. My plan was to leave you as soon as you got to the Blue Mountains.” Visenna’s gaze flickers to Ciri. “It’s vital that you all reach the keep unharmed and alive. I’m here to ensure that happens.”

Well, that’s not vague at all, but Yennefer has a feeling that’s the most they’ll get out of Geralt’s mother. Druids can be infuriatingly vague creatures. “Can you save him?”

“He’s lost a lot of blood.” Visenna looks down at her own son and for an instant, her composure cracks. For a fraction of a second, she looks like a mother looking at her badly injured child and not a healer looking at a patient. “But he’s strong. If anyone will pull through, it will be the White Wolf.”

“His name is Geralt.” Yennefer’s voice comes out a growl. “Or did you know him by another name? Do you even remember?”

Visenna’s face returns to smooth impassivity. “I couldn’t forget my only son’s name.”

“Why not? You forgot him when you drove off without him.”

The druid pointedly turns back to her work. Ciri slips out from between Yennefer and Jaskier and approaches Visenna.

“Ciri,” Yennefer hisses, because while Visenna doesn’t seem like she intends them harm, Yennefer doesn’t know her enough to trust her.

Ciri ignores her. “Can I help?” she asks Visenna.

Visenna looks down at her, expression softening. “I assume Mousesack taught you some of what he knew?”

“A bit.” Ciri’s voice wavers, like it does whenever anyone brings up the loved ones she’s lost.

“A bit is a good place to start.”

Jaskier watches them, worrying at his bottom lip. “Geralt had to have noticed that someone was following us. The man can smell it when I’m horny, for fuck’s safe.”

“Everyone knows when you’re horny, bardling. You radiate it.” Yennefer closes her eyes. “She must have used her magic to cloak herself. And I didn’t notice, because my chaos has fucked off.”

“Yenn—”

“Not now, Jaskier.” Yennefer cannot bear his sweet platitudes tonight. _“Even without your powers, you’re the strongest of us. You’re not useless. We need you. We love you.”_ Pretty words, but meaningless when faced with the enormity of potentially losing their witcher.

Jaskier is quiet for a moment. “She may be his mother, but are we positive that she doesn’t mean us harm?”

“So long as she saves Geralt, I don’t give a fuck if she tries to betray us afterwards. We’ll deal with that when it comes.” Yennefer’s gaze falls to Geralt’s pale, still face. Just a few hours ago, she followed him into the woods when he went to check the traps so she could kiss him out of sight of Ciri. She can still feel the scrape of his stubble under her lips.

“Hey.” Jaskier pulls her towards him. “He’s going to be okay.”

Instinctively, Yennefer stiffens in his arms, because there’s a stranger present and she’s never felt comfortable showing affection in front of people she doesn’t know. Showing her weak points will only get her and the people around her hurt, and Jaskier is such an easy weak point to use against her or Geralt. It’s already happened too many times for her liking. But she can feel his heart beating too fast and knows that he’s as terrified and grief-stricken as she is. He’s seeking comfort as much as he is offering it. So she leans into his embrace, tucking her head against his chest and closing her eyes.

After a long moment, she murmurs, “You need a bath, bardling. You smell like Geralt.”

“Like heroics and heartbreak? Why, thank you.”

“No, like onion.”

He snorts into her hair. “Well, you smell like Roach.”

She pinches him in retaliation.

Someone clears their throat and they pull apart to find Visenna watching them. “It’s done,” the druid says.

Yennefer glances at Geralt. He hasn’t moved; there’s no visible change in his condition. “What did you do?”

“I’m attempting to draw life from the earth into him,” Visenna says. “If he survives until dawn, he’ll live.”

“So what do we do now?” Jaskier asks, approaching Geralt slowly, like the unconscious witcher is a horse that might startle.

Visenna wipes her hands on her skirt. “We wait.”

***

The wait is long and arduous. Jaskier and Ciri attempt to stay awake, but they both drift off in the wee hours of the morning, huddled together against the cold. Yennefer covers them with a blanket, feeling impossibly fond as she looks down at them. It isn’t surprising that Jaskier is Ciri’s favorite. He’s the most human of the three of them, the softest, the most easily approachable. He can be selfish and vain and silly, but he adores Ciri and the girl thrives on that easy affection.

Yennefer feels the tiniest pang of jealousy. She loves Ciri just as much as Jaskier does, even if she’s not good at showing it. She never has been. Geralt and Jaskier know that she loves them, because in the years they’ve been lovers, they’ve both learned to read her with often alarming accuracy. But she knows that to Ciri, she’s an intimidating stranger, a woman who stumbled up to them half-dead in the middle of the night after Geralt and Jaskier had already found her and started to become her new family.

It’s not fucking fair, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

Yennefer turns to Geralt, reaching out to smooth an imaginary strand of hair out of his face. His breathing is more even now and blood has stopped leaching through the bandages. It may be wishful thinking, but he seems a bit more alive than he did a few hours ago.

“How did the three of you meet?” Visenna asks. It’s the first thing the druid has said in hours.

Yennefer looks across Geralt at her. “Why do you want to know?”

“There are still hours until dawn. We need to find some way to pass the time.”

Yennefer is quiet for a moment, then says, “He made a stupid wish with a djinn and nearly got Jaskier killed, so he came to me for help. There were… complications. The djinn became a problem. To save mine and Jaskier’s lives, he made a wish not to lose either of us.”

“So you’re bound by djinn magic?”

“Yes.”

The druid hums under her breath again.

“If you have something to say, by all means, say it.”

“You just don’t seem like the type of woman to accept such a binding.”

Yennefer shrugs. “Maybe if he had lied about it, I wouldn’t have. But Geralt was upfront from the start about what had happened. It was a foolishly worded wish, but he was trying to save us.”

And Jaskier hasn’t aged a day since Geralt made that wish. If anything, he looks a bit younger. For that alone, Yennefer can’t bring herself to resent the magic that binds the three of them together. And she knows she would love both of them, even if the wish hadn't kept pulling her into their orbit in the months after Rinde. They are both so easy to love, Geralt with his quiet bravery and compassion and Jaskier with his quick wit and endless affection. Yennefer never stood a chance.

“You love him,” Visenna says. “You both do.”

Yennefer glances over at Jaskier, who murmurs in his sleep. “Yes.”

Visenna nods. “I’m glad.”

“Why?” Yennefer demands. “Surely, you didn’t leave him in the woods because you cared about his future happiness.”

“You have no idea why I did the things I did.”

“Then enlighten me.” Fury surges through Yennefer and she wishes that she had access to her chaos, wishes that she could make this woman feel a fraction of the pain and fear that Geralt must have felt as a six year old boy left alone by the side of the road. Yennefer spent so long fighting for the choice to someday be a mother, and this fool of a druid had it and threw it away. She threw _Geralt_ away.

Visenna’s expression doesn’t change. “I did what I had to do.”

“Do you know what they used to do to the boys at Kaer Morhen to turn them into witchers?” Once, when Geralt was having a nightmare, Yennefer slipped into his mind to soothe him. The things she saw gave her terrible dreams for weeks.

The druid glances away.

“Do you?” Yennefer demands again.

Visenna is quiet for a moment, and then says, “Yes.”

Yennefer sits back. That confession doesn’t feel like a victory. If anything, she feels worse. Before, she could tell herself that perhaps Visenna hadn’t known the kind of life she was consigning Geralt to. That Visenna didn’t know of the death rates among witcher trainees and the long, lonely nights and days filled with violence that Geralt would face for the rest of his life. But she did know, and she still chose to leave him.

“Why?” Yennefer says. When the woman doesn’t answer, she adds, “I don’t deserve an explanation, but he does. He deserves that and more.”

Visenna’s composure seems to crack a bit. “Every parent thinks their child is the most special creature in the world.”

Yennefer remembers her own upbringing, cold and alone in a barn, her siblings forbidden to talk to her, her own mother not daring to look at her. If her family thought she was special, it wasn’t the kind of special they wanted anything to do with.

“But I knew from the moment I realized I was pregnant that my child had a special destiny, that he was meant for more than I could give him,” Visenna continues.

Yennefer’s lip curls. She’s seen “destiny” blamed on too many cruelties to think this anything more than another excuse.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Viseenna’s eyes meet Yennefer’s. In the firelight, they look as golden as her son’s. “I did love him, you know. I do. If I could have kept him with me, I would have. But that wouldn’t have been the right path for him.”

“How was this the right path for him?” Yennefer looks at Geralt’s still face. If it weren’t for the slow rise and fall of his chest, she would think that he’s stopped breathing.

“Because it was the path that led him to Cirilla.”

Yennefer’s shoulders tense. She stays where she is, though she wants to place herself between Visenna and the girl. “And what do you want with Ciri?”

“Nothing, except to make sure that she grows up safe and healthy.” Visenna’s gaze flickers to Ciri and Jaskier. “The girl has a great destiny and Geralt’s destiny is to make sure that she reaches it. And had he stayed with me, he wouldn’t have been the man she needs to keep her safe.”

“He could have kept her safe as a druid.” Yennefer pictures Geralt growing up surrounded by life instead of death. Learning how to grow and heal, rather than cut down monsters. He would have had a good life as a druid, she thinks, one of peace and safety. And Visenna stole that from him.

“No, he couldn’t have,” Visenna says. “Because he would have grown to be a different man. My love would have been an anchor around his neck. He never would have left our community. He would have lived and died there, perfectly content.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Yes.” Again, Visenna glances at Ciri. “There are things I can’t tell you. Suffice to say, there are worse things than Nilfgaard out there and she’s the key to stopping them.”

A chill crawls up Yennefer’s spine. “She’s a twelve year old girl.”

“She won’t always be. And someday, the fate of the entire Continent will rest on her shoulders and she’ll need Geralt at her back.”

Ciri shifts closer to Jaskier in her sleep, her ashen hair falling across her face. Yennefer’s heart squeezes.

“I railed against the truth when I realized it,” Visenna says. “I denied it for years. I tried to find another way, because I knew the horrors Geralt would face at Kaer Morhen and beyond. I foresaw the Trials, foresaw the sackings, foresaw Blaviken. I knew he would live a life of pain and loneliness for many years.”

Yennefer reaches out and puts a hand on Geralt’s chest, comforted by the slow heartbeat she feels underneath her palm.

“But I knew that someday, there would be love. There would be kindness. There would be family.” Visenna’s lips curl into a small half-smile. “I owe you and Jaskier my thanks for giving him that. He deserves it.”

Yennefer swallows back the lump of emotion rising in her throat. “You could be part of his life now, you know.”

“No, I couldn’t be.” Visenna shakes her head sadly. “Because Geralt will always look at me and see the woman who abandoned him. And at the end of the day, I’m selfish. I look at him and still see him at six years old. I would try to protect him from all the world’s dangers, and he doesn’t need that. He needs you, Jaskier, and Ciri. He needs his brothers at Kaer Morhen. But he doesn’t need me.”

“Someday, he might.”

“Someday.” Visenna reaches out, like she’s thinking of stroking Geralt’s hair, but she catches herself and withdraws her hand.

They sit in silence for a long moment. Ciri makes a soft noise in her sleep and Yennefer glances over to make sure she’s not having a nightmare. Ciri’s nightmares tend to end with someone, normally Jaskier, flung bodily across the camp. But the girl’s expression is smooth and untroubled.

“You’re doing your best with her,” Visenna says quietly. “I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. I know it’s frustrating. But you are.”

“She doesn’t like me.” It hurts to admit aloud. “I botched it somehow, early on. I’m still not sure what I did. But she adores Jaskier and Geralt and I…”

“Geralt is her destiny. She’s bound to him. And Jaskier is a bard. He’s good at being what people need him to be. What Ciri needs is a confidant, a bit of normalcy in a world that’s turned upside down. Jaskier reminds her of the people she knew at court. It’s comforting for her.”

“He’s good with her,” Yennefer murmurs. The _“unlike me”_ remains unspoken.

“And you will be too.” Visenna tilts her head to the side, a habit that’s painfully like Geralt’s. “Did you think that it would be instantaneous? That you would meet her, and she would instantly be your daughter, like the two of you had known each other her whole life?”

Yennefer doesn’t say anything, because she feels foolish admitting that the answer is yes.

“She knows what to make of Geralt and Jaskier. She doesn't know what to make of you yet, and that scares her. But you have time to change that. You’re the only mother she has left.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be a good mother.”

“Of course you don’t,” Visenna says. “Motherhood is doubting that you’re doing the right thing all of the time. Once you start to think you have all the answers, that’s when you need to worry. You love her and you want what’s best for her. That’s enough, Yennefer.”

Yennefer swallows, embarrassed by how overwhelmed those words leave her. “Do you have regrets?”

“Yes, and you will too, though I hope your regrets are fewer and less painful than mine.” Visenna hesitates. “When he wakes, please tell him that I love him. And that I’ve spent every day thinking of him since the day I left him at Kaer Morhen.”

“You won’t be here when he wakes?”

“No, and that’s for the best, I think.” Visenna turns her attention away from Geralt, back to Yennefer. “Your chaos hasn’t settled since Sodden Hill, has it?”

Yennefer shakes her head. “No, every time I try to use my powers, it goes wrong.”

“I could help with that, I think.” Visenna moves towards her, looking almost shy. “That way, if something like this happens again, you won’t need me.”

Yennefer instinctively bristles at the idea of letting a druid root around inside her head, interfering with her chaos. But then she glances at Geralt, taking in the bloodied bandages and his pale face. Had she had access to her magic, this wouldn’t have happened. The soldiers never would have gotten near their camp.

“Do what you need to do,” she says.

Visenna nods and puts her hands on Yennefer’s temples, her fingers threading through her hair. For a moment, nothing happens and the two women are just kneeling there, staring into each other’s eyes. And then Yennefer feels a spark inside of her. Her chaos, cold and dormant for the past month, roars to life. She feels it coursing through every inch of her body, wild and free and gloriously alive. Her eyes go wide.

“Take care of them, Yennefer,” she hears Visenna murmur, her voice sounding very far away. “Geralt may be Ciri’s destiny, but it will be your love that keeps her human. That’s just as important.”

Yennefer opens her mouth to reply, but the chaos surging through her becomes too much. The world spins around her, and everything goes dark.

***

When Yennefer wakes, Visenna is gone, which isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise is Ciri kneeling over her, little face pinched with worry.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “We’ve been trying to wake you.”

Yennefer groans and sits up, squinting against the blinding morning light.

“Are you okay?” Ciri asks again, more urgently this time.

Yennefer nods. “I’m fine. How is—”

“Yenn.”

Yennefer’s eyes snap to Geralt and her heart swells in her chest. Geralt is sitting up, leaning against Jaskier, who has one arm wrapped around his waist to keep him upright. The bard is visibly fighting relieved tears. Yennefer crawls towards them, her aching head protesting the movement, but she ignores it. She captures Geralt’s mouth in hers. His breath tastes like death, and she doesn’t even care, because he’s here and alive.

“What happened?” Geralt murmurs.

“You took an arrow for me, you big oaf,” Jaskier says tearfully. “And then you took three more, just for the fun of it.”

Geralt looks down at himself, frowning down at the bandages. “That should have killed me.”

“Yes, it should have.” Yennefer brushes his hair out of his face. “But we were lucky. A druid came across us.”

“A druid?” Geralt glances around, forehead creasing in suspicion.

Jaskier’s eyes meet hers and Yennefer shakes her head. There will be time to tell Geralt about Visenna later, when he hasn’t just woken up from a near death experience. Yennefer wants to give him some time to rest.

Ciri comes to kneel down beside Yennefer. Geralt's expression softens at the sight of her.

“We didn’t think you were going to make it,” Ciri whispers, eyes glittering with tears.

Geralt reaches out and pulls her into a hug. “Not leaving you anytime soon.”

“Of course not, my love.” Jaskier presses a kiss to Geralt’s cheek. “Someone needs to get us all to Kaer Morhen in one piece.”

Yennefer leans against Geralt and closes her eyes, wondering if Visenna is somewhere hiding in the woods, watching them and wishing she could hold her son as well.

***

She tells Geralt about Visenna later, after he’s gotten some rest. With her renewed chaos, she was able to summon her magical tent and they’re curled up in bed together, taking comfort in just holding each other. Outside the tent, they can hear Ciri awkwardly plucking at the strings of Jaskier’s lute. Jaskier is trying to give her music lessons, an excuse to give Geralt and Yennefer some much needed time to talk, though Ciri is terrible.

When Yennefer finishes her story, Geralt is silent for a long minute, his expression impassive. “So she left me because she knew destiny would bring me to Ciri.”

Yennefer nods.

“Hm.” He looks away.

“It doesn’t excuse what she did,” Yennefer says. “And I don’t think she expected it to. But she loves you, Geralt. She wanted to be a part of your life. And she knew that if you became a witcher, your path would bring you to Jaskier and to me, and then eventually to Ciri.”

Outside, Jaskier laughs. Geralt’s lips twitch at the sound.

“Are you alright?” They don’t talk about feelings, not really. Jaskier does that enough for all three of them. But Yennefer can’t read the expression on his face and it leaves her disconcerted.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Why didn’t she stay until I woke up?”

“She thought it was for the best, she said.”

He grunts and nods. “And you’re okay?”

Only Geralt would be worried about her after he was the one who got shot with four arrows the night before. “I don’t know what she did, but my chaos seems to be back in working order. I feel like myself again.”

“Good,” Geralt says. “That will make the rest of the journey to Kaer Morhen easier.”

“We’ll rest here for a few days,” Yennefer tells him in a tone that brooks no arguments. She won’t see Geralt push himself, not after such a close call. “I can shield us from any enemies that may try to find us. And we’ll all get a much needed break from travel.”

Geralt doesn’t look overly pleased by this idea, but he also doesn’t try to protest. “If nothing else, I’m glad she helped you.”

“And she helped you too.” Yennefer presses a kiss to his jaw. “We thought we were going to lose you.”

Geralt’s expression goes soft. “If she left me because she knew I would find you, Jask, and Ciri eventually, I suppose I owe her my thanks.”

“Geralt—”

“I wish things had been different,” he says. “But I can’t regret the end result, not if it brought me here.”

Emotion swells in Yennefer’s throat. “That was almost poetic, Geralt. You need to spend less time with Jaskier, or you’re going to turn into a bard.”

Geralt snorts. “Long as I don’t have to wear the stupid clothes.”

“You will, I’m afraid. The hats as well.”

He kisses her then, slow and sweet.

When Yennefer pulls away, she murmurs against him, “You ever scare me like that again, witcher, and I’ll kill you myself.”

“Hm.” He gathers her closer. “Can’t have that.”

And they drift off to sleep, lulled by the sound of lute music and Ciri and Jaskier’s laughter.

***

They spend the rest of the day recuperating from the night before, disposing of the soldiers’ bodies, and securing the campsite. They sleep with Geralt tucked between Jaskier and Yennefer in bed, with Ciri sleeping in a smaller bed in the corner. It’s the best sleep Yennefer has gotten in a month and when she wakes up the next morning, she feels refreshed. For once, she’s awake earlier than Jaskier and Geralt and she takes a moment to study their sleep-relaxed faces before she notices that Ciri’s bed is empty. Slipping out of bed, she steps outside the tent and finds Ciri standing in the middle of the campsite, practicing thrusts and parries with the dagger Geralt gave her.

“You’re getting good at that,” Yennefer tells her. “Geralt will make a proper witcher of you yet.”

Ciri looks pleased at the prospect. “I can’t wait to get to Kaer Morhen and have a sword. I don’t think a little knife will do much if more soldiers attack us.”

“The person holding the weapon matters more than the weapon itself,” Yennefer says, which sounds like exactly the type of infuriatingly vague thing Tissaia would say. With a sigh, she adds, “You have a lot of training ahead of you, but eventually, you’ll be someone that Nilfgaardian soldiers need to be afraid of, not the other way around.”

Visenna’s words come back to her— _“There are worse things than Nilfgaard out there and she’s the key to stopping them.”_

Ciri’s mouth thins. “I just don’t want anything like what happened in Cintra to happen ever again. I want to stop it, if I can. Especially if it happened because of me.”

“What makes you think it happened because of you?”

“The Nilfgaardian emperor wants me, for some reason. If he destroyed Cintra just to get to me—”

“You’re still not responsible,” Yennefer says firmly. “The terrible shit that other people do is never your fault, even if it is in your name.”

Ciri swallows and looks away. “I miss them,” she admits in a soft, shaking voice.

Yennefer doesn’t need to ask who she’s talking about. Calanthe. Eist. Mousesack. Her friends. Maybe the entire kingdom. “It’s never easy to lose the people you care about. But it’s a pain that gets easier to bear with the years.”

Ciri looks at her with a question in her eyes.

“I never knew my father,” Yennefer says. “He was a half-elf killed in the first Great Cleansing.”

Ciri’s eyes widen with horror.

“Remember what I just said. The atrocities other people commit are not your responsibility, even if they were your ancestors. Your grandmother hadn’t even been born when my father died.” Yennefer knows there will come a day when they’ll have to talk about the abuses Calanthe heaped on the elves in Cintra, the horrors of Filavandrel’s uprising, but that doesn’t have to be today. “After he died, my mother couldn’t bear to look at me. And my stepfather loathed me. He made me sleep in the barn and refused to let my siblings come near me. First chance he got, he sold me to the recotress of Aretuza for four marks.”

Ciri sucks in a breath.

“They’re all long dead,” Yennefer tells her. “I don’t know what became of them. I never went back. I couldn’t bear to see that their lives had continued on as they always had once I left. But I’ve mourned them, just the same, mourned the family we could have been, if they had just given me the chance to be their daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” Ciri whispers.

“It was a long time ago,” Yennefer says. “I went to Aretuza. I grew up. I learned how to wield my chaos. I saw the entire Continent. They thought they were throwing me away when they sold me to Tissaia, but I made myself a good life.”

Someday, she will tell Ciri about Anica and the other girls turned into conduits, the little Lyrian princess dead on the beach, those years of terrible loneliness as Yennefer searched for something no one thought she could ever have. But that too is a conversation for another time.

“But they didn’t know you were going to have a good life when they gave you away.” Ciri looks horrified. “They had no idea what was going to happen to you.”

“No, they probably thought I was going to be chopped up to use in potions.” Yennefer shrugs at Ciri’s horrified gasp. “Like I said, I turned out okay. Everything that happened brought me to Geralt and Jaskier. I made a new family with them, a real family. There were a lot of hard, lonely years, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, because they brought me to them.”

“They’re your family?”

Yennefer nods. “They are. I would do anything for either of them, and they would do the same for me. But please don’t tell them I said that. Jaskier would take it as a challenge.”

Ciri giggles and Yennefer smiles, heartened. Sitting down, she pats the ground next to her. “Do you want to hear about the time Geralt lost a game of Gwent to a rock troll?”

The girl’s eyes grow wide. “But he’s good at Gwent.”

“He is, but he wasn’t as good as the rock troll.” Yennefer’s lips curl into a conspiratorial smile. “He was playing for Jaskier.”

Ciri plops down next to Yennefer. “But why was he playing for Jaskier?”

“Because the rock troll had taken a liking to Jaskier. They’re drawn to shiny things.”

“How did Geralt get him back?”

Yennefer showed up and put the fear of the gods into the rock troll. “Jaskier annoyed it into letting him go. But hold on, let me tell you the whole story.”

And Ciri listens with wide-eyed fascination as Yennefer talks, not seeming to care that Yennefer is no natural storyteller, not like Jaskier. She remembers what Visenna said, _“My love would have been an anchor around his neck."_ Yennefer wants her love for Ciri to be like an anchor, but not the kind Visenna was talking about. It won’t weigh the girl down, but keep her safe. Keep her grounded. Keep her _human._

Yennefer knows that someday, she’ll have regrets. Everyone does. But not loving Ciri, not being there for Ciri, will never be one of them.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated.


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